The Good Place series finale uncovers the meaning of life
By Casey Wahl
The series finale of NBC’s The Good Place asks us to consider what it means to live a moral and fulfilling life with the time we have on Earth.
After four spectacular seasons, The Good Place said its final goodbye this past Thursday with an emotional and deeply satisfying conclusion. Creator Mike Schur announced last June that the show would not be returning for a fifth season after coming to the bittersweet realization that the story had run its course, and it was time to give these characters a poignant and thoughtful ending.
Schur wrote, “At times over the past few years we’ve been tempted to go beyond four seasons…at the end of the day, we don’t want to tread water just because the water is so warm and pleasant.” With a definitive ending in mind, the show’s final season sought out to answer a few remaining questions about the universe and prove that everything the Soul Squad had done up to this point was worth it — and it was.
After discovering that the current afterlife system (think the sorting hat, but for Heaven and Hell instead of Hogwarts houses) that decides whether a person ends up in the “Good Place” or the “Bad Place” was profoundly flawed, it was up to the Soul Squad to find a way to prove that humanity is worth saving. And thousands of tries later, they finally did.
The series finale jumps through eternity to show the new afterlife system effectively working to decipher all the gray area between moral and immoral, an area that was left unchecked in the previous system and didn’t account for the fact that it’s impossible to be entirely morally good without seeing all the consequences of one’s actions. The new system encourages people to simply be better rather than perfect.
"Chidi: “Mortality offers meaning to our lives and morality helps navigate that meaning.”"
But what happens when the Good Place becomes your eternity? What happens when you’ve served your purpose, become your best self, and done all you’ve wanted to do? These are the questions rattling our Soul Squad in the final episodes of the series, and as their stories come to a close, we see each of them make peace with their choices as they yearn for their next great adventure.
Jason, Chidi, and Eleanor walk through the door to whatever lies beyond the afterlife; Tahani chooses to stick around a while longer and become an architect; Michael fulfills the one dream he’s never been able to achieve and becomes a human on Earth. And in a moment that initially seems a bizarre choice for the last shot of the series, we see a stranger who accidentally threw out a piece of mail that was delivered to him by mistake awakened by some force of goodness in the universe that encourages him to return the letter to its recipient, Michael. It’s a small act of kindness, but one that means the world to Michael.
"Eleanor: “You won’t really know what’s going to happen to you.”Michael: “That’s what makes it special. I won’t exactly know what’s going to happen after I die. Nothing more human than that.”"
Nobody knows what may come next, but as Eleanor is reminded, the “true joy is in the mystery.” Perhaps life’s biggest questions aren’t meant to be answered, and all we can do is strive to be a little better and hold those we love a little closer each day. Maybe humanity’s only purpose is to leave the world a little less broken than the way we found it.
That’s what The Good Place has been about all along — not answering life’s unanswerable questions, but simply considering how we can best spend our time in this universe to ease the suffering of those around us. The meaning of life is formed by nothing more than who and what you love. What matters to you is what matters.
And with that, the final chapter of The Good Place comes to a close. I’ve always believed that television informs our reality, and if that sentiment is at all true, I hope people will continue to discover The Good Place for generations to come.
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